You're right.
By the way that manga is the BEST story in the world.
Essay on the dangers of policing morality in fiction Part 2:
Yaoi is one of the 'dirtiest' genre of entertainment out there. I say this because I have no argument against people who rally against the genre in general. Despite what seems to support (gay relationships), it is actually a very homophobic niche because, no matter how much we deny it, it is done purely as fantasy for girls and the seme/uke is blatant a heteronormative thing. And God knows how fujoshis are protective of their seme/uke rules .... so much so that couples who switch are practically inexistent in Yaoi.
My point with this is that: if you are reading Yaoi (and in an illegal site for that matter), have a bit of self awareness. Your moral ground to dictate, policy or shame others in matter of what is right or wrong to enjoy in fiction is already heavily compromised, either you admit it or not.
What I wish this new ( or not so new but growing and ferocious) group of readers who flock rape plot stories and stay shaming, dissing, mocking shippers realized is that be careful what you wish for. If you wish to abolish, eliminate, sanitize Yaoi stories so it will become a beacon for healthy, super educational love stories, you may lose also a lot that you don't notice you enjoy.
China and majority of its population uses the same morality policing to justify a heavy censorship of what they think is appropriate or not for the people. It is quite something to censor material for minors but think about how patronizing it is to policy what adults can read.
You are all doing the same shit when you come here, in a story clearly made for adults and start harping on how people should be reading this. Or that Yaoi ( again, a genre for adults) should have less of this and that. Who exactly do you guys think you are to tell adults what is right or wrong for them to read ? And do you really want people policing your taste in fiction?
I say that because what is most amazing in all this is that almost everyone reading in Yaoi dabbles in some kind of wrong relationship. Unless you stayed 'pure' shipping cute fluffy stories, chances are your list of reading and shipping includes plenty of inappropriate, forbidden, wrong or fucked up ships.
Believe me, you do not want a sanitized Yaoi. You do not want people dictating, censoring your fiction. If you use a 'morality' clause to crash down a particular niche of fiction one day that you don't like, tomorrow you will be plagued by a crowd that is even more righteous than you.
Just wait until the wokeness reaches to the level that Yaoi will be banned or constantly bashed to the point that you have to justify, explain like you are making other to do.
Essay part 3:
There are valid points about how fiction 'normalizes' behavior. However, please, please pay attention to the misguided effort you are all doing here. The key of all this is the word 'adult'. Show me one adult that will ever read a rape plot story in Yaoi and then decides this is normal. Show me one adult that will ever read incest or whatever else Yaoi adult story and then change their moral into thinking it is normal.
If you are really concerned about saving people from the dangers of reading fiction who 'normalizes' bad behavior, park your social justice warrior van in the stories here geared up towards teens, minors and pre teens. You do not need to do much research to find shounei ai stories who portray abuse/bullying/stalking/unwanted and forceful sexual advances as something cute.
If you are really ready for this conversation about which stories in this site should be the aim of your outrage, have a honest answer to the following question:
Which of these following scenarios are more likely to convince their audience that what they are reading is normal:
= Yaoi rape plot who portray a blatant very clear case of abuse like rape and it's geared at adults
or
= shounei ai plot where bullying/controlling/sexual harassment is diluted in blurred lines and it's geared to young people who just now are entering their sexual lives?
Again, no matter how many rape plots an adult read in Yaoi, it is very unlikely this will end up making them believe rape is normal.
On the other hand, the vast majority of teenagers in abusive relationship don't start their toxic relationships with something as easy to distinguish as abuse as rape but they may very well find it very cute that a possessive guy stalks them, forces them to wear jewelry or pins them on the bed is the best boyfriend ever.
What being an adult implies? That unless you have a learning disability, you are considered to be of a certain age where basic things don't need to explained to you.
One of the most common posts in here is people trying to 'explaining' to others that Seungho and Nakyum relationship is not normal or love. As if they were revealing a big unknown secret that no one else figured out.
People, if readers post: 'omg, Seungho is so in love with Nakyum', trust me, they do not need your patronizing lecturing that rape is wrong, this is not love, or to tell them that they are blind because this is not right. It is you who looks stupid because you look like that child who wandered into a room where adults are playing a game and you can't figure out if they really believe in what they say or not. Hint: just like there are adults who cosplay and dressed up as the silliest things, that doesn't not mean they really, actually believe in the thing in real life.
If all the shippers here were to put a big disclaimer for the children that may interpret their words as real, every shipper should start their post as :
"Please be advised that although I may ship or talk or look like I think this relationship is normal, this is love, blah, blah, blah, just know that I know that in real life this is not right'.
Yaoi is like a big tent full of rooms you choose to enter or not. If the room says Shotacon and you know you will be upset either by the story or the people enjoying or shipping something you don't like, please, act like the adult you are supposed to be: if you choose to read something and be among the people who are comfortable or ship what you don't like it, it is not everyone;s else job to stop posting what they want just you feel comfortable.
You chose to read this and you chose to read the comments that upset you. It is you who had to adapt to the room, not the other way around. Get it?
Yes, feel free to comment with your despise for the couple or the story --- a story that you don't enjoy but for some reason insists on following -- but I am yet to see any of these people be able to post an 'opinion' that is not about shaming, mocking, lecturing or provoking the readers of a niche they knew it would trigger then.
And that concludes my Ted Talking. Thanks for listening.
I agree and all but .... did you mean part 2? I'm confused. :)
That's a bad comparison. People here are criticizing the relationship between Seungho and Na-Kyum. It's quite different from commenting on a character's illegal activities. If Doumeki was a violent rapist, I can assure you the comment section would be on fire too.
First of all, this post is not about anyone criticizing the relationship between Seungho and Nakyum. It is about people criticizing/mocking and shaming the shippers. That is quite a different thing and if someone can't tell the difference between a reader not liking the relationship and then going further and shaming people who does, I won't dwell on this.
Second, it is a valid comparison because a lot of the people shaming the shippers use the argument that if something is a crime or unacceptable in real life, if a reader tolerates or engage in accepting or pretending it is in fiction, then they are to be shamed.
Again, criticize the relationship as much as you want. There is absolutely no one, not one single shipper posting in here saying that you have to accept or ship the couple. There is plenty though doing the opposite: demanding an explanation, mocking or shaming the shippers.
It is a rape plot and we are all adults in here. When you chose to read this you knew the trope and you knew there would be shippers. The further the story progresses, chances are that people who are triggered or upset by the rape plot trope are going to get even more upset and more aggressive shaming the shippers.
It is a fake story. A fictional couple. You can actually scroll down a couple of comments and see a post where someone comments that a rape is a crime and therefore it is wrong to ship Seungho x Nakyum. My comparison stands and my analogy too: if you are going to shame people for accepting, shipping, rooting for criminals in fiction, why is rape the only crjme in Yaoi that you you hang around shaming people?
Please don't try to conflate 'criticizing the relationship' with the whole shaming and harping about 'romanticize rape' in a fiction that is geared to adults.
eh? That's weird. Mangago ate my post, lol.
Going to try to post again, I hope it doesn't get duplicated.
Sorry, I don't know what you mean?... I can see my part 2.
Are you talking about something else?
Feel free to message me if you want.
Thank you for reading it! :)
It's fiction, pretend, made up, call it fake if you will. This indeed isn't normalizing anything and nobody who reads this will change their morals to thinking this is normal. Just enjoy the fantasy, amazing art and exciting story line. If you don't like it, I'd say just move on with your life. I dislike a ton of manga for various reasons (some also for rape), but I don't bash the manga, because the people who read it enjoy it very much and don't like reading comments about someone who hates the manga. They don't care for my opinion, and I don't feel much of an urge to share any negative comments. If I don't like it: ain't gonna spend anymore time on this than I already have and I'll just move along with my life. ╮(￣▽￣)╭ that's just how I stand in the matter
Agreed!!
You're missing the point. By saying rape in fiction is bad, other 'fictional' crimes are also bad. If you think reading about rape will inspire rape in real life/ normalize, then by that definition- reading about murder will inspire murder in real life/ normalize it. Again, if that is the logic you are going by, the government would have banned materials containing rape or murder. However, they did not, instead they did this thing called - putting an AGE RESTRICTION because they believe that once you are an adult, your brain is developed enough to know what is wrong or right and distinguish fiction vs reality.
Everyone here knows rape and murder is bad, but not everyone can distinguish fiction vs reality.
You're either naive or uninformed if you think rape is treated like other crimes in real life. Rape is very frequent and normalized. Most rapes aren't reported to the police. When they are, the rapists are very rarely arrested. Rape victims are commonly shamed for allegedly sharing responsibility with the rapists and somehow are seen are responsible for their own rape (dressed sexy, etc). It's also frequent for rape victims to simply be called liars.
Rape is an act that can destroy the body and almost always permanently destroy the mind. It's very difficult in a society that for starters doesn't really condemn rape to recover.
If you feel like rape in fiction is totally fine and doesn't contribute to normalizing rape further in real life then good for you but don't force other people to believe the same thing and avoid comparisons because there's nothing like it. The crime of rape is really unique and doesn't stand comparisons.
No, rape in fiction for ADULTS does not contribute to normalizing rape just like murder in fiction does not contribute to normalize murder.
How many rape plot stories would be enough to convince you that rape IN REAL LIFE is normal?
Answer this question. Please. Tell me. How is that work for you? You read 10 Yaoi rape plots and after a while you start thinking ... hmm... I think rape is normal after all. Is that it? That's your logic here?
If your feedback is that there are minor, gullible minors reading Yaoi rape plot my answer to you is that no one here is a baby sitter for minors who still at this time and age are not educated that rape is bad. Read my post part 3. This blabling about 'abuse is being normalized' in rape plot stories for ADULTS is a misguided effort. Go to the shounei ai for pre teens and please, by all means, do your job there educating those pre teens about those stories who do not use RAPE --- a very overtly aggression but instead dilute abuse in cute inappropriate things. There your claim would make sense because in order for some thing to be 'normalized' you need a mind that is not able to distinguish right from wrong.
Stop with this nonsense to try shame, guilt people into assigning them responsibility for crimes in real life just because they enjoy their fiction in a different way that you do.
No one, not a fucking person is 'forcing' you to believe in any thing. Quite the contrary. It's you and this crowd of people shaming adults for their fiction who are acting like Thought Police, Morality Police for fictional characters.
No one is actually forcing you to read what makes you uncomfortable. You made a choice to read a niche non conformative fiction knowing what you were signing for. Then you want everyone who are doing nothing to you to read the fiction based on your taste or tolerance.
Stop conflating real life with fiction because that's what you guys try to use to shame people. If you can't tell the difference between them, again, it's your problem not everyone else.
The weirdest thing is that you want to use double standards saying that rape is a crime that doesn't stand comparison. For whom? for you. and that is the point, isn't? You have your taste and standard of what you consider the worst and then you are the one trying to force others to read the story like you do otherwise they are assigned guilt for the evil of the world.
What a fucking weird thing to say. Physical torture, murder are also unique too. They may very well be just as 'normalizing' in real life as rape and they may be for other people much more triggering than rape. You don't fucking know what other people will find unique or worse.
When you find the answer to how many rape plot stories would take for you to start believe that rape is normal, please come back to me.
Otherwise what you are saying here is that you are safe from the normalizing but everyone other adult in here is a mentally challenged person who can't tell right from wrong.
Omg I just realized your user is some perv... wow how ironic lmao. Again you are missing the point. Anyway, we can agree to disagree. You can think that way and it's fine. I agree with the things you mentioned above, but again... rape is not normalized because people read this webtoon. It's not because people were reading yaoi. It's because there are fucked up people in this world.
I just don't understand why you frequent media that contain the things that you hate or are triggering to you. Again- no one here is saying rape is okay for the record. It just gets so annoying when you see countless people coming almost every chapter saying- 'rape is bad.' We KNOW rape is bad. This whole story is revolving around RAPE.
Then again your sn is some perv so maybe you secretly get off on this stuff
No one here is either naive or uniformed.
They are adults reading a fiction and they understand the difference.
Your argument here seems to be that it is fine for you to tolerate, glorify, cheer, 'normalize' in your mind all other hot criminals in your smut as long as the crime is not rape.
The irony there is that the example for comparison about the double standard was about readers who 'normalize' ( using your analogy that someone rooting for a rapist is normalizing what he does) an Yakuza mob boss. Yakuza criminals are responsible for countless real life rapes. The very same ones that you just described.
So, when you 'accept', normalize that a hot Yakuza boss is okay to be cherished, pardoned, rooted for then it is not wrong because all these crimes are not really described in the story and you can pretend the murderous, rapist organization they belong for is, in this case, just fine to ignore in fiction. Is that right?
Just trying to understand your logic here because you brought the horrors of rape in real life to justify why you would shame and assign responsibility for the crime in real life to the reads of the plot in fiction. On the other hand, somehow, readers who enjoy and root for hot mobsters who belong to an organization that in real life is responsible for the same crimes, that is okay to feel fine about it.
You can't have it both ways. Rape, pedophilia, torture, murder ... they are all 'unique' their own ways and they are all wrong in real life. You can't say that you are excused to root for a murderer mobster in fiction because you consider the crime of rape worst than murder and therefore you give a pass on one but the other you go around saying people are responsible for normalizing.
And to the point of the poster ... what exactly is your fear here about someone reading and shipping Seungho x Nakyum? That they will go in real life pardoning real rapists? That they will read this story and conclude that rape is normal?
If you are going to come here and start telling people they are to blame for real life rape happening, you better have some receipts. Do you know anyone who became a rapist after reading a Yaoi rape plot? Do you ever felt inclined to believe rape is normal after reading Yaoi rape plot? If so, how old were you?
Most importantly, how is that people reading their fiction and enjoying is in anyway forcing you to think like they do? Does anyone here said you have to ship the couple?
It is funny how your guys decide to read something you don't like it and then post shaming posts for the shippers and when you receive the much expected fuck off, you start acting like the victims who were just minding their business.
You don't like the couple. Fine. No one is forcing you to. You want to criticize the relationship. Fine too. What you just did though is a very asshole move of telling readers that they are to feel guilt and responsible for crimes in real life and excuse me but, fuck you. I am not more responsible for adults behaving badly than you are.
How sensitive, I'm not convinced you're actually an adult.
Regardless, you'll have to deal with the fact that romanticizing rape in fiction contributes to normalizing rape in real life. Murder is commonly punished, rape isn't because it's not taken seriously. Any work of fiction that doesn't take rape seriously contributes to rape culture. It's really that simple but again if you don't care it's your right. Just say "I don't care about rape culture" but don't whine in the comments that people are bullying you and being assholes because you're just enjoying a story.
"you consider the crime of rape worst than murder" please tell me where I said that. You don't have to make stuff up to prove whatever point you think you're making.
You dislike "double standards"? Well, by all means go to Saezeuru's page and call everyone out for being hypocritical. Who's stopping you? In the meantime people here will keep calling you out for normalizing rape.
Don't like? Don't read the comments.
I am an adult. I read fiction with a variety of crimes on it.
I ship some non normative relationships, I dislike others. No, never once I read a rape plot Yaoi couple and by the end of it I went... oh, I think rape is normal now.
I don't have to deal with the fact that romanticizing rape in ADULT fiction contributes to normalizing rape in real life because that is not true no matter how many time you repeat that as a 'fact' when in fact is just an opinion and a poorly proved one.
It is actually you who are whining in here about readers enjoying a fictional couple that you don't. Then in a projecting way say that you are the victim because you can't post your shit dissing people without getting hit for it. In a story that you choose to read even though you knew you would be uncomfortable with it.
You post a whole fucking rant on why rape is not acceptable to you in fiction ( in comparison to someone challenging why any other criminal/crime is okay not to be the line).
I won't be on Saezuru page one because I love that story too. I love Yashiro and because the hypocrisy here is not that people enjoy that story and root for also a controversial character that in real life should no be glorified .... because I see only YOU having this double standard.
I am not normalizing rape no more that any of the readers of Saezuru are normalizing Yakuza crimes. I am not normalizing rape no more that readers who enjoy adult incest stories are normalizing incest.
Get this through your infertile, ridiculous, childish mind.
You couldn't and will never be able to answer the questions that was posted to you: how a rape plot story would change your mind that rape is normal?
Who do you think is reading POTN and going : I think rape is normal now.
You can't make up facts just because you think it's cool and intellectual going around repeating this mantra 'Yaoi rape plot normalizes rape'.
Answer: normalizes for whom? YOU? You keep running away from this question.
Who do you think reads Yaoi rape plot and ends up believing rape is normal?
I do dislike double standards and hypocrisy and that is why my problem is not with any particular fandom. My problem is with readers like you who think they can make an argument that their particular moral standards are okay for some characters but not others. And then go on a crazy rant saying that readers in POTN are responsible for real life rapes.
Give me a break and grow up.
The only one ranting here is you and I'm definitely not going to read your whole essay. All I've done is explaining how the story trivializes rape and how saying you enjoy it mindlessly is supporting rape culture. I explained the difference between the treatment of rape and murder in real life. I also said that it's your right to not care. I'll keep it short because at this point, it's obvious that keeping the conversation going is only a waste of time.
I can't stop you from defending this story the same way you can't stop me and others from calling some readers out
Again, please explain to me this charge POTN is contributing to normalize rape in real life.
You do understand that in order for something wrong in fiction to be normalized in real life, you need to have minds that can changed after reading the mentioned fiction, right?
Are you worried about the minors reading this that may not understand that rape is wrong and then thinking that someone raping then is okay?
Or are you actually arguing that adults will read POTN and change their already formed moral values and think rape is nomal?
On the point of normalizing rape, please read my part 3. I am really curious how the crowd who are so very worried that Yaoi rape plots with a a very easy to recognize as wrong abuse like rape is a danger to change ones mind but I never ever see you guys trying to educate the young teens who consume stories like 19 Days and actually get to believe a cute boy pursuing his crush like He Tian does is the cutest thing.
I posted this question and nobody replied:
"If you are really concerned about saving people from the dangers of reading fiction who 'normalizes' bad behavior, park your social justice warrior van in the stories here geared up towards teens, minors and pre teens. You do not need to do much research to find shounei ai stories who portray abuse/bullying/stalking/unwanted and forceful sexual advances as something cute.
If you are really ready for this conversation about which stories in this site should be the aim of your outrage, have a honest answer to the following question:
Which of these following scenarios are more likely to convince their audience that what they are reading is normal:
= Yaoi rape plot who portray a blatant very clear case of abuse like rape and it's geared at adults
or
= shounei ai plot where bullying/controlling/sexual harassment is diluted in blurred lines and it's geared to young people who just now are entering their sexual lives?
Again, no matter how many rape plots an adult read in Yaoi, it is very unlikely this will end up making them believe rape is normal.
On the other hand, the vast majority of teenagers in abusive relationship don't start their toxic relationships with something as easy to distinguish as abuse as rape but they may very well find it very cute that a possessive guy stalks them, forces them to wear jewelry or pins them on the bed is the best boyfriend ever.
"
How is that you guys think that shaming adult people who are already formed and experienced in life is your purpose in order to help stop rape culture but you largely, completely ignore the stories that could actually be used as argument for grooming of the thing you most fear?
by the way, I have absolutely nothing against 19 Days. As an adult, I know what I am reading and I know that in real life a boy like He Tian is a creep who uses physical force and fear to win over his crush and Mo Guan Shan is just the character whose destiny is to fall in love with him instead of reporting him to school as bully and run away from ... but if I were the 'rape culture' warrior that you are, these stories would be the ones I would make it priority not adult fiction aimed at people who are very unlikely to start believing rape is normal just because they read it in POTN.
Essay on the dangers of policing morality in fiction - part 1:
One of my favorite Yaoi characters is Yashiro from Saezuru. He is an Yakuza mob boss.
I assume no one needs an explanation that Yakuza is a very bad organization and anyone associated with it is not a good person. Actually they are really, really horrible people, especially if they are higher ups because no one gets to be boss in a mob without a few bodies in the trunk.
Since Yashiro is an Yakuza boss with long and successful career in the organization, it goes without saying that his life involved crimes just as heavy as any real Yakuza boss. Although Yashiro doesn't kill anyone in the story, he seems quite willing to do dirty work when needed so it would not be out of realm to assume he has even ordered murder once or twice in his life.
I root for Yashiro, I ship him with his bodyguard Doumeki that, despite being a 'good' guy is also someone who can torture or kill someone if only this are his orders and specially if it comes from his beloved boss.
Yakuza is actually quite a common background for many Yaoi 'favorites' and strangely enough I never once saw anyone hang around Seazuru or any other of those lecturing people that they shouldn't be rooting for Yashiro because it is wrong. I never saw anyone hang around Saezuru saying that they want Yashiro in prison for his life of crime.
Is it because people have the ability to see that just because readers can root for an Yakuza boss in fiction and know that crime is wrong, this does not mean that the readers glorify real Yakuza bosses?
I never saw anyone posting there that Saezuru 'normalizes' crime so why there is this double standard with stories that have rape plot?
You may feel very smart or superior coming here with your : 'you can't justify rape just because it's fiction' but I actually can. Because just like I can justify loving and rooting for Yashiro to get away with his crimes and find happiness because he is not a real Yakuza boss causing harm in the world, I can justify that a fictional, very unrealistic plot of a Seungho and Nakyum ship will never hurt anyone.
It is beyond comprehension that there are still people who can't understand that fiction is pretend, make believe, escape.
One can root, enjoy, love a murderer in a fictional story and this in any way means at all that they 'normalize' what they do in real life.
The fact that simple, basic logic like this still has to be explained to the people who hang around here bashing the shippers of rape plot is beyond me.